There are bad days, and then there are days when you get popped while trying to rescue an alliance’s pride and joy. triggerman Onzo, of Mercenary Coalition, experienced the latter. A task force from The Initiative. destroyed his Charon and torched its three-hundred-billion-isk cargo: one Keepstar. Onzo had scooped the Keepstar as Mercenary Coalition scrambled to compensate for an error by Black Omega Security, one of their member corporations and the administrators of the Keepstar. It remains to be seen how this incident will affect BOS’ position within the Coalition.
Kathraine Avila, piloting a Revelation, took final blow and top damage. “It wasn’t planned,” Avila said, “since it wasn’t planned on MC’s side in the first place. Someone on their side probably derped heavily with the timer. We didn’t scoop the loot. We shot the wreck.”
Avila’s suspicion was correct. On condition of anonymity, a Mercenary Coalition pilot shared his account with EveNews24.
“For the past 4 months MC have been trolling INIT by keeping our KS perpetually unanchoring. Black Omega Security who own the KS were obviously in charge of making sure that the button was pushed to restart the cycle. This was also a decision that MC command had made rather than BOS just playing chicken.
We got alerts at 11:10 eve time that clones had been destroyed. I initially thought that the clone bay had been turned off as I was on with an alt. Messages then started to filter through on secure channels that the KS has unachored. It was parked 1,000 km off the X-M gate in FD-MLJ. Initially we had the order to get to log in screen and post what we were last in. A freighter was hastily arranged and purchased in Orville and rushed to FD- to scoop the KS, which we did. Unfortunately, a lone INIT shuttle that was travelling through FD- at the time we were bringing our freighter in scouted the KS issue and INIT flash formed.
Initially, we camped the X-M gate with subs and dictors to prevent them getting in, which was initially successful apart from a loan covert ops cheetah that cloaked after jumping. He slow burned through the bubbles and got hero point on the freighter. At that point dictors were told to do one final bubble drop on the gate and the fight then moved to the freighter. Freighter, by the way, when point was landed was aligning to warp out.
We killed the Cheetah but then a Phobos was on grid with static bubble. By the time we killed it INIT had jumped in 5/6 dreads and insta blapped the freighter. KS dropped in loot but they also killed the wreck. NC. flash formed to come help, maybe 30 caps, but it wasn’t enough.
We were in planning to start removing assets and to lift the KS off grid in the next 2-4 weeks. So this is quite ironic.
Find the Cheetah pilot. He deserves a mention because it was literally 10 seconds and the KS would have been safe.”
Jenne Expery is a low-wattage independent who dabbles in shipping, salvage, trade, exploration, and nearly victimless heists. He can usually be found bumming around Derelik and Domain under one name or another. Preferred contact method: EVEmail to Jenne Exupery of Manticore-Horizon Shipping (MANHO).
image credit: Razorien
